Trump's budget would hit Massachusetts programs

Social services providers, environmental advocates and others warn that Massachusetts would suffer dire effects under President Donald Trump's budget proposal.

Gerry Tuoti Wicked Local Newsbank Editor

Social services providers, environmental advocates and others warn that Massachusetts would suffer dire effects under President Donald Trump’s budget proposal.

“As presented (March 16), the presidential budget would be devastating to the social safety net across the country and of course in Massachusetts,” said Joe Diamond, executive director of the Massachusetts Association for Community Action.

Trump’s budget blueprint, which will likely be followed by a more detailed spending plan in May before Congress has the final say, calls for a $54 billion increase in military and defense spending, while cutting or eliminating scores of social services programs, medical research grants, environmental funding and arts and humanities grants.

The Massachusetts Association for Community Action, or MassCAP, is the statewide organization of the 23 community action agencies operating in Massachusetts. The agencies collectively serve 600,000 residents, providing programs including fuel assistance, adult education, workforce development, housing services, hunger relief and benefits assistance.

The agencies get more than 20 percent of their funding from federal anti-poverty Community Services Block Grants, which Trump has proposed eliminating entirely. Nationally, CSBG awards totaled $715 million this year, with approximately $16 million coming to Massachusetts.

The presidential budget proposal also calls for eliminating the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which provides financial assistance to help eligible families pay their winter heating bills. Massachusetts got more than $130 million in LIHEAP funds this year, helping approximately 170,000 households.

“Without fuel assistance, folks have to make terrible choices between eating, heat, medicine or even their rent,” Diamond said.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, in a March 16 press briefing, told reporters the budget proposal “reallocates and reprioritizes” spending away from “programs that cannot show they actually deliver the promises that we’ve made to people.”

“This is the message the president wanted to send to the public, to the press, to Capitol Hill: he wants more money for defense; more money for border enforcement; more money for law enforcement generally; more money for the vets; more money for school choice,” Mulvaney said. “And then to offset that money with savings elsewhere so that all of that is done without an additional dollar added to the deficit. “

Community Development Block Grants, or CDBGs, which are awarded to cities and towns for an array of projects including housing, senior centers, playgrounds and infrastructure improvements, would also disappear if the president’s budget were enacted. The $3-billion-per-year program provided $27 million to Massachusetts cities and towns in fiscal 2016, according to the state Department of Housing and Economic Development. Over the past decade, nearly 140 communities in the state have gotten a combined total of nearly $300 million in CDBGs.

CDBGs are one of the federal funding sources for Meals on Wheels programs, which also get funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, state governments and private donors. In all, 5,000 community-run Meals on Wheels programs receive 35 percent of their funding from the federal government, according to the network’s national umbrella organization, Meals on Wheels America.

Paul Craney, executive director of the conservative-leaning nonprofit Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said it’s important to maintain a big-picture perspective.

“As hard as it can be for some people, especially the political pundits in Massachusetts, we have to keep in mind that the president’s budget is for the entire country, not just us,” Craney said. “Often times states look at things in the prism of their own state, which is fine, but what may not be ideal for one state or a group of states, can be very beneficial for the entire country. It’s still too early to say if the budget is a good or bad thing for Massachusetts, we have to wait to see how it looks once it goes through the legislative process.”

Medical research would also take a funding hit under the spending plan, as Trump’s proposal calls for slashing $5.8 billion from the National Institute of Health’s $30 billion budget.

Massachusetts gets more NIH research and development grant funding per capita than any other state, according to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. Home to a high concentration of research hospitals and a burgeoning high-tech industry, Massachusetts got $3.1 billion in NIH funds for research and development in fiscal 2014, the last year for which data was available.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s office produced an analysis that concluded that Massachusetts could lose $463 million in NIH funding, and $43 million in funding from the National Science Foundation.

“President Trump’s dangerous and disastrous budget contradicts every core value of our Commonwealth and directly assaults our economy,” Markey said in a statement. “The Massachusetts business plan relies on investments in health care, education, scientific research and innovation, but this budget takes a sledgehammer to those sectors. Massachusetts is a bio-tech, clean-tech, high-tech hub, and this budget puts our economy directly in the crosshairs.”

Steve Long, director of government affairs for The Nature Conservancy of Massachusetts, said he fears environmental programs would suffer in the commonwealth and across the nation. The Trump budget proposes cutting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Funding by 31 percent, or $2.6 billion nationally. The administration also proposes eliminating the National Heritage Areas program, which costs $20 million annually, and the National Wildlife Refuge Fund, which costs $13.2 million annually.

Long said environmental preservation can coexist with economic and security interests.

Land acquisitions in Minuteman National Park in Concord and the Cape Cod National Seashore, shellfish habitat restoration in Fairhaven, Taunton River Watershed preservation and Atlantic cod fisheries studies are all examples of projects in which The Nature Conservancy has partnered with federal entities or received federal grants or support, Long said

“The pendulum tends to swing back and forth when it comes to federal policy, and this is one of the farthest swings I’ve seen,” Long said. “We do have a good system of checks and balances with Congress and the judiciary. Not all is lost.”

The National Endowment for the Arts could also be on the federal chopping block. Trump proposed eliminating the agency, which received $152 million in federal funds last year. In Massachusetts, the NEA provides dozens of direct grants to local arts organizations and also provides about $916,000 to the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s $16 million budget.

In fiscal 2016, the NEA provided 88 grants totaling more than $2.5 million to organizations in Massachusetts. Including matching state and regional partner grants, the total was more than $4.5 million.

“It’s everything from big prominent institutions like the Boston Symphony Orchestra and all the highest performing arts organizations, all the way down to community theaters, youth development programs and arts in the schools programs,” Massachusetts Cultural Council spokesman Greg Liakos said.